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Rich Lowry

It’s time to act on mental illness

Yes, this is 21st-century America. Where we have better means to treat mental illness than ever before, but choose to let the insane people decide to get it or not. Where we supposedly deinstitutionalized the mentally ill by closing down psychiatric hospitals, and then reinstitutionalized them behind bars. The number of psychiatric beds on a per capita basis is back at 1850 levels, and there are three times as many seriously mentally ill people in jail or prison than in hospitals, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. Where we let sick people sleep on the streets. About a third of homeless men and two-thirds of homeless women are seriously mentally ill. Imagine the national outrage if people with Alzheimer’s were permitted to wander around the streets uncared for. But, by some perverse logic, it’s considered okay for schizophrenics.

The federal government can act on this travesty only at the margins. It is largely up to the states. They can make a real difference by stopping the further closure of public-hospital psychiatric beds and making it easier to compel treatment. Civil-commitment laws that require imminent danger to self or others are too strict. As D. J. Jaffe of Mental Illness Policy Org puts it, that standard doesn’t prevent violence, it requires violence in order to get care to someone too irrational to realize that he needs it.

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How about we just pass a law for a one-year embargo on any reporting of mass killers’ names on TV and print media? Yeah, it’ll still spread through blogs and print media, but these killers just want fame. If you can’t yell fire in a crowded movie theater, it seems like giving these animals instant celebrity status can be just as lethal.

My impression is most mentally ill people enjoy living in society more than living in an institution. Given that maybe only 0.001% are going to murder someone, that’s a consideration. Have to look at cost/benefit. We could declare backyard swimming pools illegal too. That would save a lot more innocent children’s lives than locking up the mentally ill.

OT, but related: Just a thought on the report that the shooter was a vegan. Supposedly there is something called “vegan rage”, caused by a lack of proper nutrition for the brain. I read about it in The Vegetarian Myth, but I doubt it’s medically recognized.

I’m not trying to claim the his veganism caused the crime, but if a young man has a brain that’s already compromised, denying it the nutrients it needs cannot be helpful.

Waste of an article.
This battle’s been fought.
The ACLU won.
The Supreme Court decided that allowing crazies to wander around until they harmed someone was a good idea.
There is no clear and present danger category in the law, like the cops, the law only deals with things after the fact.
It is up to the individual to protect themselves.

There is no clear and present danger category in the law, like the cops, the law only deals with things after the fact.
It is up to the individual to protect themselves.

LincolntheHun on December 18, 2012 at 4:05 PM

As it should be in any case.
Locking people up for thought crimes? I do not think so.
Locking people up because they are not like the others? I do not think so.
Blowing a guys head off because he tries to shoot children in a school? The way it should be. So many people should carry guns that a maniac would have little more than one shot before he is taken down. Guns should be vaunted, not vilified.

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And a schizophrenic with hallucinations?
Are you going to just trust him to take his meds?
Or the Affective disorders?
There are some wildly sick people out there, that can not/will not take medicine and will kill/ seriously injure someone sooner or later.
Since the law will not protect you it is up to the individual.

I know what you mean, but the fact is that for a lot of them it is not just a thought crime issue, but violence in some other lesser way, and the only option available is to run them through the standard criminal justice system or turn down any action. There really ought to be a choice to get them the care they need in a facility that is capable and charged with handling them, just as it is with others with other conditions, far less dangerous, like dementia or Alzheimers.

I know what you mean, but the fact is that for a lot of them it is not just a thought crime issue, but violence in some other lesser way, and the only option available is to run them through the standard criminal justice system or turn down any action. There really ought to be a choice to get them the care they need in a facility that is capable and charged with handling them, just as it is with others with other conditions, far less dangerous, like dementia or Alzheimers.

I tend to agree, especially about the mentally ill homeless, but even then, there are so many fine lines and freedom issues. So many of these mental illnesses are based only on observations, I would like to err on the safe side when locking up people against their will.

And I’m not sure Adam Lanza would have even met the standard of mandatory institutionalization. What were his violent warning signs? Other than attempting to but a gun, do we really want that to trigger institutionalizing someone because maybe as a kid they were labeled in school as having mental disabilities? We gotta be careful here folks.

I’m leaning towards the conclusion that in cases like this there is no good solution other than an armed population that stops people quickly as soon as they do get violent. I’m not sure I want to give anyone in today’s society the power to decide who is sane enough to deserve freedom and hope they are on my side and agree with me.

So, who is going to make these determinations? We already know that they work day and night to make conservatives appear crazy, unstable and dangerous. Is the mere fact of owning say 20 guns enough to make you considered nuts and a danger to society. Plenty of people will be there to argue yes.

I have experience with a mental health institute roundabout from my childhood. The guy was nuts, and he did plenty of things to deserve to be sent to prison. Instead they sent him to MHI for a few months and then let him out.

Threatened me with a shotgun (actually shot out our back window), attacked our elderly church pastor and his wife for drug money, and plenty of other things. The insane are very frequently capable of acting like your favorite next door neighbor. He certainly was able to convince them to let him out, over and over and over and over again. Do we want to give doctors who create friendly relationships with these patients the power to set them free, or should they be sent to the slammer and not allowed out for long periods of time?

Like I said, unless they act out on something, they should not be put in a mental health facility. When they are, I am perfectly happy to have strict confinement rules. Thoughts are not crimes, the moment you make them crimes, then every person becomes a criminal, because the thoughts that can be deemed criminal are endless.

Do you fear the government printing money and creating hyper inflation? Does that thought make you a criminal? Not today, maybe tomorrow.

Do you argue for marijuana legalization?

Do you say that such and such a war is wrong?

Do you argue in favor of a certain war? Say that we should attack Iran perhaps?

Today, these are free speech rights. Tomorrow, with mental health officials, they might be statements worthy of putting you in an insane asylum.

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We seem to be arguing at cross purposes.
While I think the dangerous should be locked up, the Supreme Court does not. That’s the reality we have to live with. One day my will, will be made manifest, until then we are thrall to the Supremes whims.
The Supremes also have US Marshals for protection from the crazies they think should be wandering the streets.
For everyone else it’s either protect yourself or wait to be a victim.
As for the efficacy of mental health that is another, very long, post.

One article mentioned Lanza was on fanapt, which is used for schizophrenia/psychosis. Not one of the strongest choices. Not even sure he was really taking the drug

That is the problem.

Psychosis, hallucinations, paranoid delusions in a person who is exhibiting violent tendancies calls for lock up. The lock up is to either keep the patient medicated, or to keep the unmedicated patient from harming others.

It isn’t going to happen in modern America where half the kids are medicated for being kids. Drugs don’t re work brains but people want to believe it. The lunatics are running the asylum, and when it fails, they say we need more of what failed.